Daily Dose Of Jazz…
André Hodeir was born January 22, 1921 in Paris, France and trained as a classical violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he was taught by Olivier Messiaen and won first prizes in fugue, harmony, and music history. While pursuing these studies he discovered jazz and various music forms besides jazz and classical. He recorded on violin under the pseudonym Claude Laurence.
In 1954 he was a founder and director of Jazz Groupe de Paris, which included Bobby Jaspar, Pierre Michelot and Nat Peck. In 1957, at the invitation of Ozzie Cadena of Savoy Records, he recorded an album of his compositions with Donald Byrd, Idrees Sulieman, Frank Rehak, Hal McKusick, Eddie Costa, George Duvivier, and Annie Ross.
In addition to two books of Essais (1954 and 1956), he wrote film scores, including Le Palais Idéal by Ado Kyrou for the film Chutes de pierres, danger de mort by Michel Fano, and Brigitte Bardot’s Une Parisienne.
He founded an orchestra during the Sixties and composed a work based on the Anna Livia Plurabelle story from the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Violinist, composer, arranger and musicologist André Hodeir transitioned on November 1, 2011.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony Frank “Tony” Inzalaco, Jr. was born January 14, 1938 in Passaic, New Jersey. From childhood drumming he went on to obtain bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. He was active in the United States from 1959 to 1968, performing and/or recording with Vinnie Burke, Jaki Byard, Donald Byrd, Chris Connor, Maynard Ferguson, Jim Hall, Roger Kellaway, Morgana King, Lee Konitz, Morris Nanton, Duke Pearson, Benny Powell, Buddy Rich, Charlie Shavers, Johnny Smith, Billy Taylor, and Ben Webster.
Moving to Germany in 1968 he lived there for a decade as a member of the bands of Kurt Edelhagen and Eugen Cicero. He worked with Benny Bailey, Don Byas, Kenny Clarke and Francy Boland, Kenny Drew, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Peter Herbolzheimer, Carmen McRae, Sal Nistico, Horace Parlan, Fritz Pauer, Oscar Peterson, Idrees Sulieman, Ben Webster again, Jiggs Whigham, Jimmy Woode, and Leo Wright during his time in the country.
After moving back to the States, he was active principally in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1980s, working with Byrd, Griffin, and Farmer again, as well as with Ruby Braff, Al Cohn, and Dakota Staton.
Relocating again to Los Angeles in the 1990s, drummer Tony Inzalaco has led his own ensemble for the past decade.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathan Peck was born on January 13, 1925 in New York City and began playing the trombone as a teenager. After leaving high school he was drafted into the army and became part of Glenn Miller’s band. He remained with the band until after World War II ended.
He played with Don Redman in 1947 and studied classical music at the Paris Conservatory from 1949 to 1951, while playing and recording with leading jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, James Moody, and Roy Eldridge. During the 1950s Peck played on television in New York, and in 1953 he recorded with Dizzy Gillespie. He shuttled between Paris and New York until 1957, when he married dancer Vera Tietz, then settled in France.
In France, he played with Michel Legrand, André Hodeir and Duke Ellington. Spending some time in England and Germany, Nathan worked as a staff musician at Sender Freies Berlin and played with Quincy Jones and the Clarke-Boland Big Band from 1963 to 1969. Relocating to London, England in 1965, he became active in the studios, film, and television. He played with Benny Goodman in the early Seventies and with Peter Herbolzheimer by the end of the decade.
Later he worked mainly as a contractor with his company, London Studio Orchestras. While this led to him ending his playing career, he shifted his talents to putting together the best blend of session musicians that he could find. ‘The Italian Job’, ‘Yentl’, ‘The 3 Muskateers’, and many more great films, especially with French composers Michel Legrand and Philippe Sarde.
Trombonist Nathan Peck transitioned on October 24, 2015.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Phillips was born on December 7, 1936 in Mobile, Alabama. Phillips began playing jazz organ after hearing Jimmy Smith in his twenties. He studied under Ahmad Jamal, and played in the 1960s and 1970s with Lou Donaldson, Nicky Hill, Eddie Harris, Houston Person, and Gene Ammons.
His debut album Sure ‘Nuff was released on the Prestige Records label in 1969. He released several records as a leader in the Seventies before suffering a long illness in 1980. He also recorded twenty-three albums as a sideman with Harris, Person, Ammons, Rusty Bryant, Billy Butler, Willis Jackson, Etta Jones, Boogaloo Joe Jones and Bernard Purdie.
Electric organist and pianist Sonny Phillips went into semi-retirement after suffering a long illness. He moved to Los Angeles, California and has since performed and taught occasionally.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kansas Fields was born Carl Donnell Fields on December 5, 1915 in Chapman, Kansas and first played in Chicago, Illinois from the late Twenties and worked with King Kolax and Jimmie Noone in the 1930s. In 1940 he joined Roy Eldridge’s group for a year and returned to play with Eldridge again later in the decade.
He briefly led his own ensemble and played with Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Carter before joining the Marines during World War II. After the war, Kansas played with Cab Calloway, Claude Hopkins, Sidney Bechet, Dizzy Gillespie, and Eldridge again before the close of the decade.
Forming another group early in the 1950s, he then played with Mezz Mezzrow in Europe in 1953. Fields stayed in Europe for more than a decade, relocating to France where he worked as a sideman. In 1965, he returned to Chicago, working once more with Gillespie and doing studio work.
Drummer and bandleader Kansas Fields transitioned on March 7, 1995 in Chicago.
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